Nasty Church Volunteers Almost Ruin a Family’s Christmas, But Atheists Save the Day

I believe that is what is called an “own goal”. Kudos to the Oklahoma Atheists for being there to pick up the slack. This is also why I assiduously avoid religious charities in favor of secular ones. Most may be quite decent and distribute money fairly and effectively, but you never know when their petty religious rules and desire to convert people will take precedence over doing good for those in need.

Now I really want to know what they were planning on doing to that child. That church statement is just meaningless drivel.

From some of the comments on the FB page, the reason the women wanted the child to stay with them was because they didn’t want kids inside the toy room. I guess this makes sense if you don’t want the kids to play with a bunch of the toys before choosing one, but the actions of the volunteers was still reprehensible.

As for that apology…yeah, lame.

I’m not surprised the atheist group stepped up and saved xmas for the family: With no sky daddy to fear or impress, only atheists understand altruism.

“Rules are rules!” said Jesus, never.

Except, all the time. Sometimes really fucked up ones too….

3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’[a] and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’[b] 5 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ 6 they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites!

I saw similar “christian” behavior at my last church. This is why I am an ex-christian. I’ve encountered too many churches that insist on morals tests before bestowing their “charity”. They can keep their tainted, self-righteous “charity.”
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The response from the woman at the church is pretty pathetic in my opinion, primarily because she doesn’t explain the church’s actions, and also because instead of taking the heat she wants to “share” the responsibility because “we all fall short.”
That’s not an apology!

That’s what I would like to know. I’ve been to 100 Christian Churches – never heard of that move!
My gut? There was miscommunication. (However the apology makes it seem like there wasn’t).

except that this was not Christian love – if it were this wouldn’t have happened! 🙂
This sounds more like ineptitude manifesting itself.

I am an unnaturally calm person, but there are lines that, once crossed, result in such strong responses that I scare people. Trying to take a person’s child away from them? I would have spent a night in lockup after doing some serious damage to the offender. There is simple no excuse for such an action.

And the church follows up with a non-pology. Noone is perfect is a response if someone dropped a glass of milk or something similar, not trying to take someone’s child from them. Another church lacking true morals.

Her name is Tiffany Wait, not Tiffany White.

Sounds like some folks wanted to baptise the kid w/o the parent’s permission. Heck, my late mother-in-law did that w/ my kids.

Maybe it’s like when a car dealer holds the keys to your trade in until you make a deal on a new car or in this case a new savior.

Maybe not baptism, but probably some prayers.

The whole “hand over your child” thing baffles me.

Forced love isn’t as genuine in my opinion.

Crap there goes my kid …. oh wait I don’t by that crap in the first place lol

Yeah, I found the “apology” almost as creepy as the original event.

He really sounded as though he expected her to apologize to them.

It’s like Paul knows what an apology is, he diagrams it well, but isn’t yet ready to commit to one. Like saying “This is what an apology would sound like coming from me, if I were to make one. But I’m not gonna”.

What a great story of the true purpose of Christmas.

Huh. Something new for Xmas: Clergy weasel-words

I still want to know why they insisted on she handing over her child!? That doesn’t sound right. And why didn’t they explain the reason? That could’ve made things better (or worse, who knows).

Yeah, the whole thing is incredibly vague and I’m inclined to think that both parties could have handled it better. Just the fact that the lady got so dramatic immediately with the “You would turn away a baby on Christmas” while fighting back tears and then going home and immediately ranting about it on Facebook makes me think she might be one of those that embraces the whole victim thing.

If the reason was because they didn’t want kids in the toy room (presumably because they might get overexcited and grabby, as kids are wont to do), it’s not the 7-month-old you have to worry about. It’s the toddlers and older kids who can actually run around and get into things. And why not just explain that instead of telling a parent they have to hand over their kid before they can go in?

On the up side, at least the kid is too young to remember this “ruined” Christmas (or even know that it was).

Someone please clarify: Did or did not the atheists get to eat the baby?

I’da punched the crap outa the person then called someone I trusted to pick up my child and waited for the police.

That’s a relief to hear. I feel a bit guilty expecting the worst. I should try not to be so cynical.

I try to put myself into the shoes of the event planner and I try to understand what need there was to take possession of the children as part of the workflow, but I’m at a total loss. Not only is it unnecessary, it sounds like added work for the volunteers. I just don’t get what valid purpose was served by that process.

You have to be inept at life to think that you can ask a parent for their infant child without at the least explaining what you intend. It’s very difficult to believe that something like this could escalate to such a point without something a bit spicier than garden-variety employee ineptitude going on. This is more “let’s take all the control rods out of reactor four and shut down the fail-safes and see what happens” grade ineptitude. I mean, actually trying to grab the baby away?

And the non-apology pushes it from possible-if-not-quite-plausible-that-this-was-all-one-big-misunderstanding territory to “what exactly the fuck were you going to do with that baby?” territory. There are ways to preserve the benefit of the doubt, and this ain’t it.

I also find it suspect that the article is based entirely on her account.

Does anybody have any idea why exactly they asked the mother to hand over her child?

Yes, because the entire episode began with him breaking other rules himself.

Gourmet night at the church?

Analogies and metaphors are also a big part of the reason the gospels stuck around. They needed enough malleability to fit the biases of the listener to catch on with wide cross sections of the populace.

it’s a very poorly written article, in terms of clarity and the narrative of “what happened.” i left a comment at the website asking for clarification. i would like to know exactly why the parents were asked to let strangers fondle the infant in exchange for toys. that’s creepy at best, and much worse, potentially.

I presume that the relevant statements are in the bits that you need a FaceBook account to see, but the suggestion made elsethread here, citing comments on that Facebook page, is that they wanted to keep children away from the toys. Perhaps because they feared kids getting overexcited, and causing disruption.

But it would make sense for the church to at least explain the purpose of the policy.

I don’t to want to vilify that church for this incident. They were attempting to provide toys at Xmas for children of poor families, which is a praiseworthy act, and there has been no reason offered to suspect that they were imposing onerous conditions on the recipients (other than the handing over their children while a toy was selected).

My guess is a quickie baptism was in the offing.

Laughing because the comparison to Chernobyl is about as hyperbolic as one can get.

Seems a bit on the creepy side to me.

Once again, Baptists don’t do infant baptism. This rush to ascribe nefarious motives is not cool.

As Stewart pointed out in this thread, that’s unlikely, since baptists don’t believe in infant baptism.

Hi, I’m the woman this happened to. My husband was waiting at a table for us to finished with the toy store so that we could eat lunch. I was in line with the baby by myself. After I got out of line I ran to my car and cried and my husband went in to try to talk to the ladies who were so rude to me, but they rude to him also saying simply that rules are rules.

They wanted to carry him while they picked out a toy to give him. He didn’t want to go to strangers. Because parents weren’t allowed, they told me, either I let them take him in without me or he wouldn’t be allowed inside.

Ok, I am having a hard time following this article. Can someone tell me who this “Wait” person is? I thought the article was going to be about Tiffany White and her child.this mysterious “Wait” person can’t be the child because it states “the church volunteers insisted that Wait hand her baby over,” which indicates that is must be the mother, but the beginning of the article states the mother’s name is Tiffany White. Someone please explain it to me.

Typo

Atheists don’t need the threat of hell or the promise of heaven to be good people. We’re good without gods.

Hi my name is Tiffany and I’m the woman this happened to. They wanted to hold my baby to take him into the toy shop to pick out a for him. Because parents weren’t allowed inside they told me that either a volunteer could take him inside or he wouldn’t be allowed inside at all. My husband was at a table waiting on us to get out of line. After I left the line I ran to my car in tears. My husband went back to try to talk to the ladies who were rude but he didn’t accomplish much. They gave him the same reasons they gave me “rules are rules”. When I got home I went to rant on AOK not asking for charity but just to vent and cry. They came together gave my family the best Christmas ever. I’m a closet atheist because my small town doesn’t take kindly to ‘heathens’, but I may come out publicly after all . I’m so thankful my atheist online family. They saved Christmas and my faith in humanity.

My email is tiffanyfaithwait@gmail.com if you’d like to find me on Facebook or you can find me on Twitter @crunchymamaok

Are you serious? Shame on the mother? Surely you have to be joking. Why in the world would anyone there have “power” over her. Especially when we are talking about handing her defenseless 7 month old baby!

Oh, I know. But the trade-off has to be in clarity, and if the message is important not just for being delivered but in being received intact, there are several more effective ways (if you’re all powerful and all wise and all sneaky) to ensure the message gets propagated without relying on literary tricks and tropes. After all, large swaths of intricate rules and promises survive through what became the Old Testament, and that ain’t light and fluffy metaphors and analogies for the most part.

The parable of the mustard seed for example is, beyond the obvious problems, absolutely useless if you’ve never seen a mustard seed; the detail distracts from the point, rather than enhancing it, to the point where there are several absolutely hilarious guesses interpretations of the parable trying to explain the obvious deficiencies of the analogy as secret strengths through ever more abstract meanings, which all hinge on Jesus picking mustard while knowing that mustard:

1. is not the smallest seed on Earth
2. does not grow into a tree

and that people generally don’t plant it in gardens because it is considered by most a weed, and what’s with the birds? Are they taking shelter like hapless souls, or are they evil birds come to despoil the Kingdom of mustard seeds God with their seed-eating and seed-disrespecting evil evilness? And is the Kingdom of God being like a mustard seed the same analog to faith being like a mustard seed or is it different entirely, in which case why did he use the same object for his metaphor…

I do believe that was sarcasm.

Well, every once in a while, I’m confronted with a series of decisions that a human being actually made, where they had to have said to themselves “sure, this makes sense, and what could possibly go wrong?” that makes me want to double facepalm followed by a repetitive headdesk till the pain goes away.

The consequences may be on different levels of severity and quantity, but the qualities of the thought process that led there are, I’d be willing to bet, probably very similar.

All the links to their Facebook group and posts above don’t work for me. I guess they’ve gone very very private.

I do hope so, but after reading some of his other posts I’m not so sure.

Quite so. And I’d be personally happier if believers just copped to that rather than trying to pry some clarity out of the morass.

On the other hand, I firmly believe that wrestling with literal religious nonsense as an object of ultimate concern had quite a profound and positive impact on the variety and subtlety of logical tools we have as a species developed. Bang your head against the Trinity for two thousand years, and you might not get any more of a sensible answer than when you started, but the creativity (and intellectual desperation) that went into trying to figure it out was helpful when the resulting tools were turned on things that aren’t so nonsensical.

It’s one of the reasons why, I think, fiction in general and narrative even more generally is absolutely essential for humans to stimulate pragmatic creativity; toying with ideas in a fictional world can be good exercise for applying the idea for serious in the really real world. Gedankenexperiment, and all that.

Of course I’m joking. Come on, get your head in the game! 🙂

“… to grease the hinges on their soul to let Jesus in later.”. (Grin)

So not too different from Catholicism, then?

Welcome to the real world, where many christians are self entitled assholes because they think they posess “the truth”.

Hi. Glad you could make it. I guess the million dollar question is why were parents not allowed inside. What was up with that?

http://www.cricketusers.com/attachments/android-apps-information/1986d1332082574-pocketesn-quickly-get-info-about-status-phones-esn-troll.jpg

Perhaps the one thing in the known universe that a 7-month-old would not be oblivious to while conscious is being separated from mom.

Tiffany, I hope you and your family were able to enjoy the holiday, and I hope you have a happy and prosperous new year.

Poe’s Law in effect, I suppose. I was aiming to be so deliberately absurd that nobody would be able to read it as serious. The problem is that – as Poe’s Law states – there’s nothing you can do to parody fundamentalists that’s SO outlandish that there isn’t some fundamentalist who legitimately holds that position!

Hope your holiday was great! And I hope things go well in the future.

Yes, that would seem to open the church to a lot of potential liability issues, let alone the headaches of dealing with small children upset about being separated from parents.Could lots of things: overzealous volunteers, bad judgment calls, or just bad rules.

Thanks for letting us know that you can’t tell the difference between nonconsensual touching and “befriending”. Do you spend a lot of time on crowded trains “befriending” women?

I give this comment an internet gold star. You sound awesome, Joi!

Totally agree, the article leaves wide gaps of knowledge leaving these comments full of speculation. This still could be poor rules and/or thoughtless volunteers.

Creepiest, lamest non-apology ever! We’ll just duck the issue of why we behaved in this horrible manner but we will oh so generously take one third of the blame. The family we treated so shabbily should take a third because, you know, the offended need to “show grace and mercy” and those atheists need to take a third of the blame to because, event though they showed the kindness and charity we were unable too, at some point they, like every other person ever, will fall short of being the best people they can be.

Christian love means never having to say you’re sorry.

It’s haphazard at best, which could mean inexperience with PR as much as douchebaggery and the spectrum in between.

Agree Totally 3lemenope, That’s when you tell them to shove their gift up their ass sideways and you leave. Running out to the car in tears was a bit dramatic
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What assumptions can you point to that have been made by me?

A nice Chianti.

You’ve assumed the author’s intent when you say: “don’t put up a picture of a sad faced toddler to elicit sympathy and outrage”

Atheists although not a religion is the winner and agnostics are just new atheists that’s all. Look at the jewish one a penny lmao

They took down the page.

Moar liek LAME minister, amirite?

I sincerely thought I was taking a passage of the bible in a way that no reasonable person ever would, for comedic effect. While on the one hand it’s sort of darkly amusing to know that there are people out there who do in all seriousness something that I saw as over-the-top absurd, there’s a larger dimension of horror in realizing there are people who would fall for that sort of absurdity and call it rational!

You can’t “befriend” a baby. An adult cannot “befriend” a baby. It’s sickening to even think in those terms. Are you a creepy pedophile, DrAnon?

nope it is not in the sense that they do the infant thing but Gods forbid you compare them to their faces to Catholics, Catholics are in a cult according to most born again religions

Oh wow… you must be new here. Let me point you to some beginner’s materials, from this very blog.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/12/04/another-atheist-billboard-launches-in-times-square-who-needs-christ-during-christmas-nobody/

Can you think of any other reason? The point is that the picture misrepresents the age of the child and brings into question the credibility of the entire post. There is no need for embellishing, that’s what nutty Religious people do.

Anyone can be “good” – and they should be. But the chief aim of Christianity is not “goodness” per se, it’s more about love than good behavior – and about being closer to God. The message of the Gospels is not “be good so you can go to heaven” it’s much more “follow me so you can go to heaven, and when you do that you will also do good.”

Not only is it scary for the parents, it would be terrifying to the child. I realize the parishioners take the coercive atmosphere for granted, but it is not normal to the average person to hand over a child who is fearful of strangers.

This wasn’t a good idea of the church and my guess is that they will never do it again. But my guess is that the reason parents are not allowed into the room is because they feel desperate parents will sometimes do desperate things. It’s the same reason church food pantries in our area don’t allow people into the actual food pantry itself and instead bring out the bags of food for them. Whether that’s a real possibility or perceived possibility I don’t know. But these types of drive are manned by volunteers who have no training, no idea how to diffuse stressful situations, etc. Sometimes they make crummy mistakes as in this case.

Midwinter celebrations are a part of many pre-christian cultures and even if you’re not a believer, many of us celebrate the holiday secularly. I might was well ask you if you work on federal holidays.

It is likely an isolative christian sect, which is not really as outgoing as they would have others believe. Norms and morals are decided amongst themselves, and outsiders are not consulted.

I liked your first part…that the church makes its own rules regarding society and they take their sensation of having been blessed in their correctness as a sign from their god. This makes them invulnerable to criticism.

“Christmas” is just the currently most popular name for the winter solstice celebrations that had been going on for centuries before Christianity ever existed. We don’t care when the guy who is the source and magnet of the Jesus legends was born (or even if he never was and is a totally fictional figure). The whole giving presents thing? That comes from Pagan Roman tradition. We don’t care that the sun isn’t an invincible god either (but frankly, it’s a prettier myth that doesn’t involve believing humanity is degraded and corrupt, needing a blood sacrifice to atone for its “sins”). It’s enough for us to say, doing stuff to make other people joyful is good.

There facebook page is nowhere to be found. That is some amusing shit.

Seems the Church’s facebook page has been taken offline.

I’m definitely sad that this family had to go through something like that, and glad that things worked out, but in the end I don’t really see why this is worth posting on this page. I mean it’s one family having one bad experience with one or two volunteers. If there were as many atheist charities as their are Christian charities we’d be seeing plenty of similar stories about incompetent volunteers doings stupid shit on behalf of nonbelief.

Like I said, glad the uproar resulted in a family in need getting gifts for their child but extrapolating anything about the nature of Christian charity from this story seems silly.

Being closer to a fictional being is not a lofty or noble goal.

ROFL….

“grace” is the excuse used by cultists monsters to justify being monsters, nothing more, it is a made up word (that coincidentally is spelled the same as a real word) that has no meaning, just word salad gibberish of cult jargon.

Sorry, but that’s just creepy that the parents cannot go in with their children. What are these Bible Baptists doing to the kids when they’re out of sight of the parents?

See? Atheists can be some of the most human and caring people on the planet. Love it.

It’s more the greasing to let Jesus in that freaks me out.

Thanks for the info! Like Smiley says…that’s just creepy.

As a person who does volunteer work with kids, I don’t really think that’s good policy, particularly when dealing with people you don’t know who have no real reason to trust you. If you’re doing something for kids, you don’t want to freak out parents. If she wasn’t comfortable with that, they should have accommodated her or else they were just being asses.

I suspect part of the problem is many religious people view themselves as inherently moral and trustworthy, and they think it’s a crime for anyone to doubt their goodness.

Charity is too often made a degrading experience, more so someone can feel big and important for giving it where the person getting the aid is kind of an afterthought.

Yes. Do parents have any assurance that the people handling children have passed adequate background checks? We do get the news on priests, but church *volunteers* (who are often subject to no background checks) are another source of problems as well.

How the heck is a seven-month-old expected to “pick out his own toy”?

Not trying to shoot the messenger, just expressing my disbelief at their policy.

Be especially careful if they ask, “Is this your firstborn?”

The last time I ever went to church (about 20 years ago), a similar thing happened. Our church was having a Wednesday night potluck dinner. The church was in a poorer neighborhood, and a lady with her four children happened to come in to see what was going on. I invited them to eat with us. The elders in the church kicked her out, citing the opinion that if we let her eat with us, then all the other poor people in the apartments behind the church might try to come eat as well. My family fed the lady and her children at a restaurant down the street, and we never returned to church.

don’t blame the concept – which is actually a good idea, seeing as it’s a set of rules that allows a bunch of murderous primates to live together in reasonable security – for what individuals choose to do.

er…. no, more likely they didn’t want the child going into the toy room and seeing all the toys and going bonkers. it’s the same rule in my town for the christmas hamper: you’re not allowed to bring your kids. can you imagine a line-up of single parents with two-plus kids, preschool and toddler age, trying to control them in a huge room full of toys? good luck with that!

the problem here was a failure to communicate. instead of forcing the child from the mother, they should’ve asked a bunch of questions and then sent in a volunteer to get the stuff and load it into the car. SOP.

it can be argued that atheism is, indeed, a religion – they certainly spend just as much time thinking about gods, even though it’s in terms of denial.

it’s agnostics who just go about their business.

well, aren’t you just Nerves of Steel?

newsflash: some ppl take it a bit hard, being humiliated in public. wierd, but there you have it.

Actually…. A catholic can, under certain circumstances, perform a baptism. I have an aunt that was seriously considering taking her heathen grandchild to a priest for a quickie baptism. The baby’s parents didn’t want to have a baptism.
I warned her that she was risking access to her grandchild. She then looked into doing it herself. It’s allowed in extreme cases, like the baby is dying or something. Don’t know if she went through with it.

Actually they were trying to win souls for Christ, the giving of toys is just a means to this end.

A sin was committed but not by me.

That allows a bunch of murderous primates to murder each other and feel good about it. FTFY

Okay, this is just flat out creepy. I can imagine my response had this been me.

Apparently not

Godwinning doesn’t help anyone. Nor does invoking Hitler Ate Sugar.
Fallacious argument in general is a bad thing.
So are stereotyping people and speaking in absolutes (especially about morality). There are amazingly moral and kindhearted people in the world who happen to be religious, just as there are some who are atheists. There are immoral/evil/intolerant people in the world who happen to be religious, just as there are some who are atheists. People vary, and religion isn’t the only factor that shapes personality. This is how stereotypes are born and abused. Don’t tar all religious people with the Hitler (or the O’Reilly) brush, just as you wouldn’t tar all atheists with the Stalin brush.

First of all: Not defending the pathetic apology.
BUT: Is there a chance that this is an overreaction to a totally normal situation that Ms Wait found uncomfortable? (I may have, too). But maybe it would have been chaos to have parents filling a toy room along with their kids, and the Church learned to have a system that simply made it easier? Soup kitchens almost all have rules. The playroom / day care room at IKEA? Parents are noit allowed in no matter what – you have to wait outside nfor your child.
The part that makes no sense is that a 7 month old would pick out their own toy – however I have also been in situations (when I was a kid, at huge office parties for the company where my father worked) where the toys are pre-selected for age groups, and kids are not so much “picking it out” as just picking one up.

To your point – maybe a new term is needed. A doctor who loses all of his patients is still a “doctor”., a lawyer who loses all of his cases is still a “lawyer.” A guess a Scotsman who never visits Scotland is still a Scotsman – but he’s a pretty bad one!

Stealth baptisms?

Now I have this mental image of a big black flying cross, swathed in radar-absobent material, armed with “holy” water cannons, plunging silently out of the night sky and drenching any unsuspecting kids in its path… 🙂

I think you’re saying that the idea of “good” can be arbitrary? If so, I agree – it gets complex, maybe another reason that early believers called the Gospel “good news.”

“I am poor and would not be able to celebrate Christmas this year…”

That sentence spoke volumes to me. I can’t say if there ever were any halcyon days when this holiday was solely about family, friends and love (or even the supposed birth of a man-god baby). Yet, a statement that basically says “I can’t afford this Holiday” perfectly illustrates just how this time of year is about nothing but crass, shallow hyper-capitalism.

I myself once did this to a Jewish co-worker (who had a great sense of humor, otherwise I never would have done anything like this, ever) – sprinkled her with some coffee, said the words and the shouted “BAM NOW YOU’RE CATHOLIC!”

That’s why I don’t go to church anymore. Some Christians are PHONY and JUDGE … Brothers and sisters in Christ???? Ya right. Geez!!

But why not let parents have some say in the gift??? Or is it that churches think that poor people have no right to an opinion? You will take this drum and cymbal set and like it.

Yeah, let’s try not to make that argument, though. There is a vast gulf between ‘actively participating in a system of beliefs and behaviours that positively asserts the existence of supernatural forces that we can interact with’ on the one hand, and ‘vocally pointing out the flaws in such superstitious ways of thinking, and trying to campaign actively against the harms that result from acting on such beliefs’ on the other hand.

Atheists are killjoys? Yeah says the kid that got the toy. The author is an ignorant shit. You all can defend this however you want which christians will. Turning away people during a holiday of family friends and giving is bullshit. I dont care how you put it. No one asked for perfect and where the hell did that come from? They asked for assistance thats all. Atheists are about giving anyways and won’t ask for shit in return.

Indeed, smrnda. I also felt that my parents church wanted my parents to beg a bit.

I have also noticed that the people who talk about gutting social programs in favor of private charity always talk about how God wants them to give personally rather than through the government, and how they want to “be involved”( i.e. judge) those they give to. It’s all about the beliefs and needs of the giver. The people who need aid never seem to enter the conversation.

I question “praiseworthy”. Many christians seem to need an ulterior motive before acting charitable. Saving your filthy, evil, wicked soul works. There is often also a clear boundary between the saintly giver and the lowly givee. The givee is expected to grovel gratefully with immense gratitude for any crumbs thrown their way.

Atheists. Not the hero Mommy wants but the hero Mommy needs.

REALLY? It did not sound as though they “held power” over her. And if she wanted to continue to hold her baby, they should have been creative enough to respect her wishes and figure out an alternative plan. After all, she has authority over that child. If she felt it was in the child’s best interests that she hold him/her rather than handing the baby over to a stranger, then more power to her. They could have had enough understanding and compassion to make an exception, especially for an infant. By the way, I am a Christian.

Old customs don’t apply anymore. Now we eat puppies.

They didn’t find the dog after the party, by the way. 😛

They didn’t want to let anyone inside besides the children. So they were going to drag the 7 months old baby inside to pick a toy and make the parents wait outside.

If they want free stuff (like the rest of the left) they should play by the rules. It’s silly to say anyone wanted to manhandle a child and you know it.

Great – no free stuff for them. They can get a job like the rest of us who don’t have to whore our kids out for toys.

Perhaps, if none of the details in this article are accurate, it might have been a completely different situation. Maybe there was something else going on about the demands to physically hand over the kid, but this line clinched it, “The volunteers held their ground, according to Wait and one woman tried to forcibly take her child.”
Had that been my kid, this would have quickly turned into a story about a church volunteer getting severely beaten. It’s hard to see how this could have been a “totally normal situation.”

“This content is currently unavailable”

I guess they had too much of a backlash and closed down shop?

Why would it be silly? It’s a perfect example of entitlement issues that Democrat voters are so fond of. If you don’t want to play by the rules of this charitable organization, you can pretend you’re a conservative and get a job to pay for all the Christmas toys you want.

Who demands to hold a strangers baby? Was the church worker dressed as a cute anime bear?

But seriously, this is such a strange story. And the apology also creeps me out. Been a creep to people? Just tell them the Bible’s got your back and that they’re required to kiss and make up. I’m all for forgiveness, but it’s also okay to be angry, and just walk away and not deal with problematic people.

It’s not so much that the church thinks poor people have no right to an opinion. But if you’re poor enough to need someone to give you a free gift for your child you might be poor enough to be desperate. Desperate people don’t always think rationally. There’s no shame in that. If I was desperate I wouldn’t always think rationally either. But the church was trying to avoid a situation where safety could be compromised. Granted their very strict solution wasn’t a good way to do that but most of these volunteers I imagine aren’t trained or experienced in social work. Situations like this are why I personally think the right’s argument that charitable works should be handled solely by the church instead of through the government and taxes are laughable.

When Christian hypocrisy really annoys me (as in, rises beyond normal, ignorable levels) I take to calling them “the Lukewarm”. The ones who don’t know their Bible are confused (leading to a fun teachable moment), and the ones who do are invariably extremely annoyed.

Not quite as vicious as Maynard Keenan’s brutal offhand reference to parishioners as “the Collective Judas”, but gets the job done.

Is the family name White or Wait? Very confusing….

But still pleased to know the family had a better Christmas thanks to an atheist organization. Shame on that ‘church’.

Baptism, what else.
Spray some water on him so that he does not have to be circumsised : That is what John the Baptist did.

Yeah. The Mormon church just waits until they’re dead & buried. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2012-03-05/mormons-proxy-baptism-holocaust-jews/53372816/1

Would it have been so difficult for the church to have said “We’re sorry?”

This sounds really creepy to me since this was an INFANT not a child of an age who could understand and actually pick out a toy.
Whatever the reason, it was WRONG to attempt to take an infant away from the mother.
These people are going against the basic tenets of Christianity in that “CHARITY SHOULD BE GIVEN WITHOUT A “TEST” FOR THE RECIPIENT.”
There are churches here in my city who give to the needy and don’t ask if they are Christians or not. At some events they are joined by people of other faiths or no faiths at all and they WELCOME the help.
One of the pastors at this church has stated that he believes in the “ecumenical ideal” that was proposed way back in the 1930s to bring churches together and not isolate them into different “sects” which is DESTRUCTIVE.

He points to the sectarian wars in Islam where people who should be brothers are fighting each other over the way they worship the VERY SAME GOD.

fundie xtians are ALWAYS the victim don’t ya know? :/

This need to be involved is a requirement of their faith. Although Christians will say salvation is a gift from God, Paul specifically states that faith without works is dead. So Christians believe that if they truly have faith (ie. going to heaven), they must “work”. So yes a lot of times (not always) the charitable acts is about earning their place in heaven not about compassion itself. I do believe this is why the volunteer was so rigid. She/he had already completed the requirement by simply being there and working so if the families weren’t willing to follow the rules, no skin off their back.

Not true, Blacksheep. A church where I live got in trouble last year for offering to take children to a kid gathering at their church. Once there, the kids were all baptized whether or not the parents consented. They were also offering candy and treats to get the kids to go with them.

I’m reasonably sure the church person misunderstood the rules. In this age where we see paedophiles around every corner, absolutely nobody separates parents fropn young children. Even parents of tweens get wary of mandated separation!

Any word on why they wanted the baby handed over in the first place?

“The party of the first part hereby acknowledges that the party of the second part got upset, though admits no wrongdoing… Etc.”

Never been very fond of Baptist my whole life,this bone head stunt just reinforces it.

Actually, according to the story, Mommy is an atheist, but never until this came out. Oklahoma is finding out that they have a lot of nice, normal people who happen to be atheists.

probably to force a baptism on the kid.

Same thoughts.

Meh… the church cowards shut down their Facebook page! Guess they don’t like people criticizing them for their asshattery.

me, too!

Thank You to the Atheist group that helped this family.

Before that policy was instituted we had parents with 4 year olds walking out with gifts for the older kids.

And….they’re somehow magically not exempt from being creepy? Not picking up what you’re laying down here.

I suppose you don’t let little girls have “boys” toys, or little boys have “girls” toys, either.

So? My maternal grandmother was an elderly woman – and she was a heartless, vicious old bitch when it came to kids. An utterly devout Irish Catholic, funnily enough. Makes me wonder whether Baptist grannies are any different?

“I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians.” Gandhi

I get it! Like the pope excommunicating a priest who advocated for women to become priests and supported gay marriage, while at the same time the Pope rides the Roman Catholic Church for being too focused on gays and abortion. Hypocrisy much in Vatican City?

Speaking as a licensed and trained social worker, this was handled very poorly by the church. One’s status in society has zero to do with how they think. I cannot believe you had the audacity to say “Desperate people don’t always think rationally.” There is shame in that. A whole lot of shame. There was no safety compromised. The child was never on the ground nor was the child out of the parent’s arms. Volunteers do not have to be trained social workers to be safe; neither do priests or nuns or bishops.
I think your view of folks who do not make enough money to afford Christmas gifts for their children is twisted. Shame on you. You look down on them with scorn and disdain. How dare you think they are desperate. You and people like you disgust me. Just sit back in your glass house and watch out for the stones. I can guarantee you that they will come fast and hard when they come–and they will come, with the attitude that you have.

I think you’re being a pretentious blowhard. Yes, perception is a funny thing. Get over yourself.

How is that bad exactly? charity is charity, anything else is ego
(in response to parents taking a gift for other kids)
ps.. also, how do you know? I mean toys offered to children have already gone through the de facto filter.. i.e. they are offered to begin with.. so you can’t be making a deduction from what toy was taken.. i mean; if you saw a parent with a child take a toy that you thought “well, that toy isn’t suitable for small children!” why is this toy available when there is apparently a restriction on how old the child to receive the gift is?
If there’s no restriction, but simply a 1-gift-per-person thing.. well why does it matter whether the charity is in person or not?

what is harmful to our children is tolerating an attitude where people can feel justified to take a child from their parent like that..

I’ve been reading down the comments here and people are getting very pre-occupied as to WHY it happened, does this matter? Is there any explanation that will make us say “oh, that’s ok then”?

The point is not where, who, why.. it is what happened, the act itself, alone..
This is a universal issue of consent that religion the world over needs a very stern lesson in.. Oh i’m going to hell if i choose to “sin” am i? well it’s a good thing you were here to take all my choices away from me..

I mean, even outside the context of my own opinion (as in, i’m an atheist, there must always be some degree of assumed bias in the reading) and within religions, referring here mainly to christianity/judaism/islam group: Not even God himself dares to presume he may take a person’s choice away from them..

This isn’t only about people thinking they can override the choice of a parent because they “know better” but also about all freedom, like gay marriage, to pick a really hot topic. So “gays burn in hell”? well that’s unfortunate for them, but how does that grand the right to take people’s choice away. My soul, if indeed i have one, is my own.

If anybody ever tells me i am committing a sin through the actions of my own free well, whether that is following my heart or protecting my child then i’m afraid i will just have to burn in hell and like it..

Kids are sometimes supposed to pick out their own toys, but the baby was only 10 months old, how could she pick out toys at that age? It reminds me of being forced to attend our local catholic church, the stuff those church ladies got away with!

I think it is, though in an ulterior sort of way – referencing religious choice demonstrates the need for pro-atheist media representation – as in, the same way a person wishing to raise their child gender neutral doesn’t have the realistic option of treating their children exactly the same, each must be primed to defend themselves from societal pressure

.Sometimes, mercy and grace is needed as the solution to make amends for
a wrong. That goes for the offender as well as the offended.

In other words, “if you want to have a loving world, let me treat you like crap, and you just stay there and take it with a smile on so that there isn’t any conflict.”

Now I understand the pasors sentiment- he has been reaching out to the woman and apologizing since the event took place, but she’s not talking to him- but honestly- absolving yourself of responsibility because your victim does not a heartfelt apology make.

Apologies, then. Internet social cues are scarce, strange, and often stumping. It’s hard enough for me to interpret social cues and clues in real life, but at least the information is there; on the Internet all I have is text. The issue is exacerbated when the attitude and fallacies being satirized/joked about are quite common and seriously used. My apologies for failing to identify your snark as such.

My thoughts.

Then set up age areas! You don’t get to make policy that removes a child from the comfort of their parents. You can’t defend stupidity Jeff. Admit it was a bad rule and change it for next year!

The most annoying thing I find in all christians is there ability to play the blame game, even when they are the ones suppressing.

Of all the rules to throw out, don’t toss out that one! Basic hygiene ftw. Seriously, did Jesus want his followers to die of avoidable diseases?

It’s easy to say that from a modern perspective, but at the time there wasn’t a connection between ceremonial cleanliness and public sanitation. There were a series of elaborate rituals one needed to go through to be ceremonially clean, many of which were a major financial burden. It was just another way to differentiate between the social elite and everyone else, a barrier Jesus was trying to break down.

And if Jesus was perfect-god, he would know that ceremonial cleanliness was still cleanliness and a really freaking good idea.

Whether he is God isn’t relevant to my point, I was countering the claim that he advocated unthinking obedience to arbitrary rules. And ceremonial cleanliness only occasionally corresponded to actual cleanliness. You can’t be cured of leprosy through a series of animal sacrifices, for example.

Oh, of course. But why not pick that example, then? The Middle Ages were fucked in large part because people read that as an injunction against bathing, and actually held Jews’ cleanliness against them (during the plagues, Jews got sick less often because of bathing and washing hands, so there were pogroms against them because obviously the evil Jews were spreading the plague since they weren’t getting sick as often).

If you think Jesus really is perfect god, and I don’t know if you do or not, then he had to have known what effect using that particular example would have. Jesus definitely advocated unthinking obedience to arbitrary rules in places, he just contradicted that in other places. So pick your verses carefully, but remember that there’s always verses that say you’re wrong in the very same book you’re looking at.

Fig tree- bear fruit out of season or die. Lesson: obey the rules or die, even if the rules are literally against nature.

Healing the Phoenician woman’s daughter- he turned her away and called her a dog, saying the rule was that Israelites were the only important ones. He only healed the girl because the woman grovelled. Lesson: rules are to be followed even if people die, unless you stroke god’s ego. There is certainly no love or compassion here.

And then all the following verses, courtesy of evilbible.com

1) “For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:18-19 RSV) Clearly the Old Testament is to be abided by until the end of human existence itself. None other then Jesus said so.

2) All of the vicious Old Testament laws will be binding forever. “It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the law to become invalid.” (Luke 16:17 NAB)

3) Jesus strongly approves of the law and the prophets. He hasn’t the slightest objection to the cruelties of the Old Testament. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest part or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.” (Matthew 5:17 NAB)

3b) “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness…” (2 Timothy 3:16 NAB)

3c) “Know this first of all, that there is no prophecy of scripture that is a matter of personal interpretation, for no prophecy ever came through human will; but rather human beings moved by the holy Spirit spoke under the influence of God.” (2 Peter 20-21 NAB)

4) Jesus criticizes the Jews for not killing their disobedient children according to Old Testament law. Mark.7:9-13 “Whoever curses father or mother shall die” (Mark 7:10 NAB)

5) Jesus is criticized by the Pharisees for not washing his hands before eating. He defends himself by attacking them for not killing disobedient children according to the commandment: “He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.” (Matthew 15:4-7)

6) Jesus has a punishment even worse than his father concerning adultery: God said the act of adultery was punishable by death. Jesus says looking with lust is the same thing and you should gouge your eye out, better a part, than the whole. The punishment under Jesus is an eternity in Hell. (Matthew 5:27)

7) Peter says that all slaves should “be subject to [their] masters with all fear,” to the bad and cruel as well as the “good and gentle.” This is merely an echo of the same slavery commands in the Old Testament. 1 Peter 2:18

8) “Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law” (John7:19) and “For the law was given by Moses,…” (John 1:17).

9) “…the scripture cannot be broken.” –Jesus Christ, John 10:35

Wow, you did come prepared 🙂 It won’t surprise you to find out I interpret these verses differently than you do. For example, calling the woman a dog would have been the expected behavior of a Jewish rabbi, so the fact that he then pulls a complete 180 and subverts the expectations of all involved makes me think he was making a deliberate rhetorical point, rather than being cruel before changing his mind.

And as a counter example, he said in Matthew 19:8-9 “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery”, so he’s directly countering the Torah.

In the end, obviously I think I’m right, or I’d change my opinion, but your objections are reasonable ones. What I’m betting we can agree on is that Jesus (be he God, man or literary figure) was a complex and often self contradictory figure.

I loved that in particular. The victim of this terrible church is to blame because she won’t let them harass her into forgiving them.

This was not a mistake. This was terrible behavior on the part of your church minions, Mr. Pastor. Stop making excuses for them, stop trying to absolve yourself, stop assuming you should or must be forgiven, and just freaking apologize. A real apology, not a fake one where you’re free to assume your “mistake” was small and harmless.

Sorry I forgot, any dissent against the accepted party line is unintelligent. Funny how all the free thinkers seem to have the same constraints? Might I suggest you visit the Jewish Holocaust Museum in Berlin. You will find, so too did the Nazis start, little lie by little lie till they could sell the big lie.

Bet you never thought of yourself as a purveyor and facilitator of lies? Yet there you are.

I wonder if Paul is going to set up a toy shop himself? Actually go mix with the poor and homeless? He could go out with some friendly atheists as they try to help the poor and homeless? Maybe some of the many commenters below could go down to their local shelter and buy a round of coffee? Set up soup kitchens?

No? I guess it is up to those evil Christians to do it then.

Every argument you post that relies on the degradation of another commenters character is a giant neon green sign that you truly have no argument whatsoever. Many “friendly atheists” DO go out, clearly, to help the poor/homeless/charities/etc. Your comment insinuates otherwise, which is empty and demonstrably false.

So now there are some groups you know I hate?

As I said, one little lie followed by another.

While we’re at it, why don’t we set up an Atheist Pedophile Shelter, an Atheist Suicide Bomber Training Camp, an Atheist Civil Rights Repression Center, ehh nevermind, you’re not even a fun troll.

Your ignorance is willful. You can only maintain it by *purposefully* doing so. You are either a troll, or are so politically/ideologically polarized that you’re incapable of telling which side of the road you’re driving down.

You did not present an argument. You presented a laundry list of useless personal attacks. The Nazi comparison is so overused in these types of debates that it is it’s own debatoral fallacy. The one that uses it admits failure in doing so, as you have multiple times over.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

Turns out religious people do more and give more and most do not emblazon the good they do.

(citation needed)

Visit sick strangers in hospital, the wife volunteers once a week in a soup kitchen, Provide solace to the old and infirm in homeless shelters, donate to the Church and charities, all this sometimes several times a week. I might very well be morally superior, I have no idea if I am, but I know I am my brothers keeper.

Why do you find it acceptable to promulgate the lies you do here, but criticise my questioning of your lies and my defence of the people you seem to despise?

Are you ignorant of the fact of what you do? Or are you so isolated from believers that you actually have no idea what they do believe?

[citation needed]. And if that is the case, why do they name themselves Christian Aid or Catholic Missionaries or some other name that explicitly draws attention to the religious part of it? Why not just do good?

I’ve never been Christian. I’ve been bombarded my whole life by people trying to convert me, so I’ve had to learn more about their religion than they know lol.

Calling a woman a dog was never expected behavior. It’s an insult. Dogs were unclean, filthy, carrion-eaters. Calling anyone a dog was not only not expected, it was (and still is in modern Arab countries) a horrible thing to do. Would you excuse a doctor for telling an African-American woman “go away, nigger, the rules say I can only heal white people”, forcing her to grovel and beg him to heal her daughter, and then relenting after she grovelled to his satisfaction? No. That doctor is not a good person and certainly not advocating breaking the rules. That’s exactly what Jesus did to that Phoenician woman.

I’m not saying my interpretation is right, either. I don’t even say it’s my interpretation, so much as that it’s an interpretation that exists. I am saying that there are a lot of interpretations with a lot of verses backing them all up, and no possible way to know which, if any, interpretation is right. Jesus is indeed a complex and self-contradictory figure, but I also don’t see him as a terribly moral character or one who had a lot of useful things to say or lessons to teach. Siddhartha Gautama is far more fascinating IMO (no, I’m not a Buddhist either).

TIFFANY WAIT (aka Tiffany Whovian on her newly updated Facebook page) IS A LONGTIME SELF-DESCRIBED ATHEIST. SO WHY WOULD SHE GO TO ANY CHURCH OF A CHRISTIAN FAITH TO ASK FOR CHARITY TO CELEBRATE THE BIRTH OF A PERSON SHE DOESN’T BELIEVE IN?

I am her former mother-in-law. The story doesn’t mention it but she also has
an 8-year-old daughter whose father is my son. She is a former Jerry Springer guest (the instigator and not the victim). She has always been the
conceited type who would do or say anything to see her name in print. Since she is a devout atheist, there is the definite possibility that this was a pre-planned event specifically designed to promote her as the poor victim in a salacious, attention garnering, media-headlining event, which it appears has worked. While there may have been missteps by the members of Bible Baptist Church, it is evident that it was not intentional on their part. I do not believe the same can
be said for Mrs. Wait – – or is it Mrs. Whovian??

For anyone who questions her non-believer status, I have copies of comments she posted on a Facebook page on 12/4 that I would be happy
to share.

Well, DUH. All that “good work” is going to help those slutty slut sluts who should have just kept their legs closed!

</SARCASM>

Given what you wrote, I’m sure she’s happy your her “former” mother-in-law. Where did it say that one had to be a proclaimed Christian to receive charity? It’s a bit telling that the Facebook page of the Chruch and all the comments of the Pastor have been deleted. Stay classy!

“Why do you think it is the Red Cross?”

Not for the reason you think it is, old mate. It’s simply the Swiss national flag with the colours reversed. Dunant, the bloke who started the whole thing off back in the 1860’s, was Swiss.

Have a squiz at their basic principles – faith/belief/god don’t get a mention. Nor should they, it’s a secular organisation, always has been. Claiming otherwise just tells me your a few sangas short of a picnic.

Oh, so now we’re onto the Morality Olympics?

Also: “the wife”? Ick.

“Sometimes love is not perceived as being “loving” even in the best of
circumstances.”

Ah. So the problem is that they’ve redefined “love” and say that sometimes, dangit, love doesn’t feel loving, and she just needs to let them unilaterally redefine love and put up with their “loving,” which if she were of the same mindset she’d have perceived “correctly.”

They don’t even have enough shame to know that saying this stuff in their out-loud voice is bad. I feel like shouting No, you dipsticks, if your behavior isn’t perceived as love then it is not actually love. People can guess when they are being loved.

A nice chianti.

You do realise that you are on the internet? Try google.

I guess that depends on whether or not you are a brownie.

Is that the friendly atheist soup kitchen?

That’s not an argument, it’s the fallacy of appealing to authority. I see you have at least 2 supporters untrained in logic.

LOL it is true, you really don’t get irony; at Christmas, a Christian celebration, some Christians have set up a toy shop. Now you miss the fact that the good deeds of helping out those less fortunate and focus on one unfortunate incident.

Not only that, you have tried to portray people, who might have the best intention in the world, as evil, without any real investigation of the facts. Good man that you are.

Your toy shop? My guess is you were not out handing out gifts to the needy.

Is that what passes for reasoned argument here?

Oh sure, religious charities can be good. That wasn’t really the argument I was making, though- they always specifically name themselves as Christian or Catholic or whatever to show how awesome they are! It doesn’t take away from the good they do, of course, but it does speak to gpsang’s argument that religious people “do not emblazon the good they do”.

Apt response to the the banality of your earlier post. Any reasoned arguments you can make?

I see sarcasm is also lost on you…

Citation for any of those claims?